November 20, 2006

Of the many things I can remember about the trial... one detail that sticks in my mind was the incidental disclosure that Simpson can barely read or write. This is, in other words, not just a decision to publish "his" book. It is a decision, which must have been taken some time ago, to get such a book written and to get him to cooperate with it. The title is, of course, illiterate to start with ("If I Did It, Here's How It Happened" rather than "If I Had Done It, Here's How I Would Have") as well as an admission (because, however modified or qualified, the "Here's How It Happened" still stands on its own) but both of those offenses are quite possible in today's publishing. It would still be mildly interesting to know who cooked up the idea and who did the inducement and the ghosting. The only thing that definitely didn't happen, rather like his ongoing search for the real killer, was Simpson bringing in a manuscript and submitting it for publication.

I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, Geoorge. Hitchens is pointing out that Simpson is illiterate and could not have written this alone. Hence, the horror that someone would sit down with an unrepentant and vicious murderer to detail his disgusting and lurid crime, no matter the pain it would inflict on those family members still alive, merely for a few bucks.

Simpson is a disgusting man. And Fox is equally disgusting for doing this.

O.J. isn't the first, and won't be the last to have a book about them ghost written. Most of us don't have the writing ability to write a book that someone else would willinging buy and wade through. I know I don't.

But Hitchens, despite the claim that he is in a perpetual alchoholic stupor, again points out critical facts.

The other thing that I would be interested in learning was how Simpson expects to keep the proceeds out of reach of the Goldmans. I have heard that the proceeds are to go to his kids. But would that work? Even if some of them are also creditors of his (but others are not)?

Of course, the "right" thing to do would be to write a lot of books like this, engage in other money making projects, etc., instead of just playing a lot of golf, in order to pay off those who have judgments against him (notably, the Goldmans).

I don't see what's illiterate about the title. Isn't "If I Did It, Here's How It Happened" a grammatically-correct indicative conditional? "If I Had Done It, Here's How I Would Have" is also fine, but it's a subjunctive conditional, which is a different thing.